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Highway of Tears
Also known as Highway Sixteen, is a highly traveled road stretching from Prince George

to Prince Rupert, British Colombia, and Canada. This highway corridor stretches 450 miles and

has several hundred miles of side streets that are either uninhabited or have very few people

living there per square mile. This makes this a perfect place to pick up innocent and unsuspecting

victims from the road and dispose of their bodies without any witnesses. Since the 1970s,

possibly even earlier, forty women have been reported missing or murdered along this corridor.

These are just the women we know of due to family or friends reporting them missing, but there

could be a lot more than this number. Almost all of these women are indigenous. Though this

specific set of cases is happening in Canada, the crimes against indigenous women directly

reflect the current conditions Native American women face in the United States. Missing

Murdered Indigenous Women is an organization working to bring crimes against Native

American women to light and fight for justice. They work with all Indigenous women of North

America despite nation boundaries. I hope to use the Highway of Tears as a case study to

represent North American Indigenous women facing a much larger problem. In this essay, I will

be discussing the history of the Highway of Tears, poor policing policies, and what steps will be

taken moving forwards to protect our Indigenous women and girls.

History

Since most cases of missing or murdered women have been associated with this roadway

were Indigenous, several local tribes began calling this highway the “Highway of Tears” to
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allude to the Trail of Tears walked by Native Americans in the southern United States after their

forceful dismissal by the government of United States in 1838-1839 to Indian Territory, now

known as Oklahoma. This journey was long and hard. Their travels were plagued with

inadequate food supply, diseases, and harsh temperatures. Many died along the route. If

something as serious as this event in history is being used to compare to an event in our present

time, I think the world should be paying close attention and doing more to prevent future

atrocities. There are documented cases of women and young girls disappearing or being

murdered along the Highway of Tears as early as the 1970s. Still, as previously mentioned, these

are only the cases we know about. Prostitutes are known to hitchhike and hang out around truck

stops, but sadly most of the time, these women do not have a robust support system to go looking

for them when they do not come home for several days. This is a massive problem in the United

States and our major highway systems. Without these unknown cases, there are still over forty

documented cases of women going missing or murdered along the Highway of Tears corridor. It

is unknown whether this is the work of one person or multiple. However, there has been

speculation that some of these cases may be linked to one killer due to the similarities and

consistencies in the victims' traits since most of them are Indigenous women and girls.

● Poor Policing: Ramona Wilson

These Indigenous women and girls were real people with hopes, dreams, and families.

They are not just a number. Their faces deserve to be seen, and stories deserve to be told. I chose

to highlight the case of Ramona Wilson to show how poor policing directly affected Ramona

Wilson was sixteen years old when she went missing on June 11, 1994. She had told her mother

she would meet up with a friend, with plans to attend various local graduation parties that night.

She was extremely close to her mother and still slept with her majority of nights up until she was
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fifteen. Ramona was the baby of her family and was always known to be happy. She was loved

by all she met. When her family had not contacted her the day after she last saw her, she was

reported missing to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and they began looking for her the

following day. Unfortunately, it is a common misconception that you must wait at least 24 hours

to report a person missing. Every hour that passes by from the time a person is taken

dramatically reduces their chances of being found dead or alive. The first 48 hours are crucial to

the investigation because short-term memory begins to fade after this point, and it can cause

conflicting reports from witnesses (CBCnews, 2021). Most children who are taken are murdered

within the first three hours of their disappearances, and only a tiny percentage live on past the

48-hour mark. Since the search for Ramona was conducted 48-hours after the last time she was

seen, her chances of being found alive were very slim. Had the police immediately begun

looking for Ramona as soon as her mother reported her missing, there would have been a much

greater possibility of her being found alive, but this was not the case. The police did not have a

sense of urgency to look for Ramona even though, at this point, it was known that Highway 20

was a scary place for women, especially young girls.

On April 9, 1995, Ramona's corpse was picked up in woodland. The R.C.M.P. continued

their investigation, and Matilda, Ramona's mother, spoke very highly of the new head of Royal

Mounted Canadian Police, Sergeant Wayne Clary. He continues to contact victims' families and

has actively investigated these murders and disappearances since taking over the R.C.M.P. in

2011. Matilda still hopes that her daughter's killer will be found as new technology has improved

forensics and helped many other families of Highway of Tears victims find closure. Ramona's

case opens up the floor to many questions deeper into police conduct. Why did the police wait to

conduct their investigation when it is common knowledge that time is very precious when
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applied to missing person cases? Could it have been because of her race? It is a known

stereotype believed by many racists that Native American women are loose sexually and are

easy. Would this have affected their sense of urgency by assuming she was off with some man or

perhaps practicing prostitution? If none of these factors played a part, then why was when a

white woman went missing from the road in 2002, there was a fast response from police along

with considerable media attention?

Gabby Petito
Even though cases of missing or murdered women have also affected the whites, the case

of Gabby Petito could be attributed to racism by some Native Americans. According to a state

study conducted in January 2021, native people have added up to 21% of foul plays in Wyoming,

the location in which the remains of Petito were found. This is in contrast to the fact that they are

just 3% of the population. In addition, the study stated that only 30% of native homicide

casualties got media attention, unlike their white counterparts, where 51% got media attention.

The study also reported that for Native Americans, media depictions were possibly subjected to

pessimistic attribute conceptualization, which discouraged people from making known their

missing ones to the police. Taking to the case of Gabby Petito, which became a federal stir, we

find that white women differ much from the native women's cases. Explainer posts and video

recordings on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter were used to report Petito’s missing case (Rosman,

2021). A comedian and author referred to as Paris Campbell was obliged to use her TikTok

account with approximately 150,000 followers to try to locate Petito and reunify with her

parents. A couple of days later, Campbell had posted around 40 videos, and news about Petito

and her boyfriend Laundrie, together with their Instagram feeds. Besides mass media updates,

numerous federal broadcasts conveyed Petito's case zealously. On the day that human relics were
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found inside a forest in Wyoming, Petito's name was cited several times on CNN. In addition,

breaking news updates and life broadcasts were published by the New York Times, whereas Fox

News released numerous news bulletins over time. Editors were driven by Petito's case to pursue

her story intimately. A report by the University of Wyoming indicated that 710 indigenous

people disappeared between 2011 and 2020 in the same state where Petito was found. However,

these natives were not accorded the same attention as their counterpart, Petito. Haley Toumaian,

a data analyst, concurs with the opinion that crime reports and attention have mostly centered on

white women.

Moving Forward

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have put enforcement laws to curb the cases of women

missing on the Highway of Tears. British Columbian government has aimed to set up a bus

service to the route. This is due to prolonged impoverishment and deficiency of public transport

system, which obligates many to hitchhike as they locomote around the area. In addition,

financial backing has been declared to offer essential cell phone coverage along the highway.

The local and national governments are offering 4.5 million U.S dollars for boosting the 11.6

million U.S. dollars expenditure for setting up cellular service on the whole route (Azpiri, 2021).

The cell service will create comfort amongst the residents because they can get help in times of

emergency. R.C.M.P. has also put up multiple billboards along the highways in Montana to

spotlight the case of missing women. Buckley, who owns Tveraa Photography, has produced

photo series for billboards that perceivably propagate these cases. The billboards illuminate

native women with scarlet handprints over their mouths with different content. Lastly, Canada

has reinforced juristic impositions around hostility against women.

Despite the R.C.M.P. pioneering advanced plans of action to give a discourse on women-

related violence, it happens that the police fail to employ those policies systematically when

patrolling in native communities. Native women and girls frequently fail to get the security these

plans of action provide. Often, women who call for help from the police happen to be accused of

mistreatment and could risk arrest. Thus, there is a need to reinforce independent organizations

to investigate police misconduct and make judgments accordingly.

Works Cited

"How Prejudice Affects the Cases of Missing Indigenous Women." PBS NewsHour, September

28 2021, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-prejudice-affects-official-search-for-

missing-indigenous-women-other-women-of-color.

Rosman, Katherine. "The Case of Gabby Petito and How It Captivated the Internet." The New

York Times, October 20. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/style/gabby-Petito-case-

TikTok-social-media.html.

Azpiri, Jon. "Funding Announced to Provide Full Cellphone Coverage along B.C.'sB.C.'s

Highway of Tears." Global News, April 8, 2021, globalnews.ca/news/7743522/bc-

highway-of-tears-cellphone-coverage-funding.